Discovered more than one hundred years ago, the Tishchenko reaction is an atom-efficient method for synthesizing esters from aldehydes. Lewis acids, metal alkoxides, and late transition metal catalysts have been used to catalyze this reaction.
Today, the Tishchenko reaction is commonly employed to make simple esters, i.e., those produced by the disproportionation of a single aldehyde (homo-coupling). If two different aldehydes are coincidentally subjected to Tishchenko reaction conditions, a near statistical mixture of four possible esters are produced—two from “homo-coupling” and two from “cross-coupling” as shown in Equation (1):

A significant limitation of this technology is that there are no selective catalysts for a crossed-Tishchenko reaction between two different aldehydes to make two esters in high yield.
Thus, there is a need for a crossed-Tischenko type reaction that can selectively produce two esters in high yield and selectivity.
The present invention addresses this need as well as others, which will become apparent from the following description and the appended claims.